Southern Classics Series 6 A Woman Rice Planter

Pringle, Elizabeth Waties Allston (Patience Pennington)

ISBN 10: 0872498263 / ISBN 13: 9780872498266

Published by University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, 1994

About this Item

Light Creasing on Front, Rear Covers; Front, Rear Covers, Spine Lightly Chipped; Moderate Sticker Pull to Rear Cover; Edges Lightly Soiled. ALSO KNOWN AS: Originally published with an introduction by Owen Wister and illustrations by Alice R. H. Smith by the Macmillan Co., 1913; reprinted with an introduction by Cornelius O. Cathey by Harvard University Press, 1961. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY: Charles Joyner. CONTENTS: Illustrations; General Editor's Preface; Introduction; Chapters I to XIV. SERIES: The Southern Classics Series returns to general circulation books of importance dealing with the history and culture of the American South. Under the sponsorship of the Institute for Southern Studies and the South Caroliniana Society of the University of South Carolina, the series is advised by a board of distinguished scholars, whose members suggest titles and editors of individual volumes to the general editor and help to establish priorities in publication. Chronological age alone does not determine a title's designation as a Southern Classic. The criteria include, as well, significance in contributing to a broad understanding of the region, timelines in relation to events and moments of peculiar interest to the American South, usefulness in the classroom, and suitability for inclusion in personal and institutional collections on the region. SYNOPSIS: A Woman Rice Planter offers insights into a broad spectrum of Southern life after the Civil War. As an account of a woman's struggle for survival and dignity in a distinctly male-dominated society, it contributes significantly to women's history. For observers of the black experience, it affords opinionated, but nonetheless revealing, views about African American folklife. It presents a rich portrait of a distinctive place - the South Carolina Low Country - in a troubled and generally undocumented time, a portrait made all the more vivid by the more than one hundred fine pen-and-ink sketches of Charleston artist Alice R. Huger Smith. Elizabeth Allston Pringle grew up on the antebellum rice plantation of her father, a former South Carolina governor. Once the owner of seven plantations and 15,000 acres, her father, at the time of his death, was bankrupt. Left to struggle for income to regain the property and position the family held prior to the war, Pringle turned to writing and eventually published a column on Southern culture in the New York Sun under the pseudonym Patience Pennington. In 1913 she collected and reshaped these newspaper columns and compiled them into one volume, A Woman Rice Planter. Her descriptions of the vagaries of rice planting, of her relationships with former slaves and the first generation of free-born African Americans, and of her life in the early Reconstruction period are important to our understanding of the prevailing attitudes and persistence of the Old South in the New. Charles Joyner is Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Culture at the University of South Carolina, Coastal Carolina College, and director of the Waccamaw Center for Cultural and Historical Research. He received a Ph.D. in history from the University of South Carolina and a Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in journals and magazines such as American Quarterly, Civil War History, and Journal of American Folklore. He is author of Folk Song in South Carolina, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community, and The South as a Folk Culture. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # 000982

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Southern Classics Series 6 A Woman Rice Planter
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, Columbia
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0872498263
• ISBN 13: 9780872498266
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Illustrator: Alice R. Huger Smith
• Edition: Third Edition 2nd Printing.
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • History - Peoples & Places

About this title

Synopsis

A Woman Rice Planter offers insights into a broad spectrum of Southern life after the Civil War. As an account of a woman's struggle for survival and dignity in a distinctly male-dominated society, it contributes significantly to women's history. It presents a rich portrait of a distinctive place--the South Carolina Low Country--in a troubled and generally undocumented time, a portrait made all the more vivid by the fine pen-and-ink sketches of Charleston artist Alice R. Huger Smith.

Elizabeth Alston Pringle was the daughter of Robert Francis Withers Allston, a state legislator and governor, who was at one time owner of seven plantations but bankrupt at the time of his death. Left to struggle for income to regain the property and position the family held prior to the war, Pringle turned to writing and eventually published a column on Southern culture in the New York Sun under the pseudeonym Patience Pennington. In 1913 she collected and reshaped these newspaper columns and compiled them into one volume, A Woman Rice Planter, a best-selling book that reduced her financial worries. Her descriptions of the vagaries of rice planting, of her relationships with former slaves and the first generation of free-born African Americans, and of her life in the early Reconstruciton period are important to our understanding of the prevailing attitudes and persistence of the Old South in the New.

The volume was illustrated by Alice R. Huger Smith (1876-1958), an American painter and printmaker. This edition features an introduction by Charles Joyner (1935-2016), distinguished professor emeritus of southern history and culture at Coastal Carolina University and author of several books, including Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community.

About the Author

Elizabeth Allston Pringle (1845-1921) was an American planter and author, who wrote under the pseudonym Patience Pennington. Her husband, John Julius Pringle, died in 1870. She is the author of Chronicles of Chicora Wood. In 1994 Pringle was posthumously inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors.